On 6th October, school education secretary Anil Swarup wrote to the heads of all state education boards appealing them to avoid inflating marks for students in class XII. The inflation of marks have led Delhi University to set unrealistic cut-off marks for admission in the past few years. According to sources, the education boards of Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Telangana and Goa have replied in agreement to the Centre’s advice.

However Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Odisha are yet to respond to the appeal. Moderation policy is only applicable when students are offered extra marks in subjects regarded “unusually difficult,” or if there have been differences in the sets of question papers. Some school boards are allegedly misusing it to inflate Class XII results in order to offer students a competitive edge in college admission. Mr. Swarup also said that the practice of giving grace marks can be continued provided the policy is publicly declared and that weight to extra-curricular activities is same across all boards.